I believe in getting to the core of the drive towards cult membership
so that eventually in our socities there is less of a need to become
involved in dangerous cults.

Hyperreligiosity is a psychological disorder in which people are unable
to be realistic about the religious side of their nature. Their religious
manifestations are no longer under rational control. One example
of hyperreligiosity is when epileptics during seizures feel especially
close to God. Another example is when people are no longer in tune
with their ego (used in the Freudian or established psychological use
of that word) in which they grew up in and now are unable to resist
submitting to abusive behavior at the hand of a cult. Hyperreligious
individuals do not need to be in a cult to punish themselves with irrational
religious behavior.

The problem of hallucinations in religious practice is the other problem
that draws people to cults. Hallucinations are distinguished here from religious experience, which the best of psychologists such as Jung and
countless others establish as important objective experiences. Hallucinations are produced in the brain in a similar way to dreams. Like
in the day time the stars are there in the sky above us but obscured by the sun's light, so is the dreaming mind present with us in daily waking
consciousness. The more prone the mind becomes to seeing this dreaming brain via certain kinds of meditations, drugs, or pre-disposition,
the more a person can become delusive.

I have written a book on each of these subjects so if anyone would like
to chat with me let me know. I think I turned off my e-mail but I will
try to change that. I was diagnosed as hyperreligious when I was 16 and
have spent time seeking amoung numerous cults but through normal
religious help and studying psychology I was able to recover.

I have not heard of that diagnosis.

Are you in the United States?

Most of the cult members I have met over the years and read about were drawn in through a combination of deception and manipulation.

They didn't know what they were getting into essentially.

Subseqently they were "brainwashed."

See [www.culteducation.com]

Hi,

Yes, I'm in the U.S.

I'm no expert on cults nor have I done any
work with ex-cult members. I guess however that different
people might fall into different categories. Hyperreligiosity
can happen to people in mainstream religions as well.

I can accept the brainwashing explaination to an extent...one
might say it does forfeit responsibility on the part of people
who fell prey to such abusers.

In the case of hallucinations, many people today accept the
book "Autobiography of a Yogi" as being absolutely 100%
true. However, much of what happened in that book could
be sincere hallucination or the retelling of accepted local fables.

In referencing that book, my philosophy teacher said, "Robert
did you ever think that some people just LIE?"

The hyperreligiosity and drive to hallucinate to gain "objective"
proof of God helps people deal with issues that they themselves
can control (as they can also to falling prey to abusive religious
leaders).

branstormer:

Quote

forfeit responsibility on the part of people who fell prey to such abusers.

People that have been deceived, manipulated and exploited don't need to take responsibility for the bad acts of those that have preyed upon them.

And it doesn't seem either logical or meaningful to blame cult victims for the bad behavior of cults.

I'm not looking to blame anyone. The alcoholic is not blamed
for growing up in a dysfunctional family. I'm only looking to empower
people. People are what they are for a reason. What makes one
person able to slam the phone down on a con man and another willing
to listen to what they say?

I'm not looking to play a game with one-upmanship with you on this.
I am a very compassionate person and I believe compassion has been
in my posts.

I don't think we can say there is one profile of person called "cult victim."

I'm willing to admit that many "cult victims" are not hyperreligious.

brainstormer:

See [www.culteducation.com]

This is a good basic primer to better understand cults and the people that become involved.

Anyone could potentially become involved, based upon their current personal situation, opportunity and lack of specific knowledge.

Someone who knows about cults and their techiques would quickly disconnect, like hanging up the phone on a con salesperson.

Sadly, most people don't know much about cults and their approach and therefore are not very well prepared.

Hi Brainstormer...

There certainly seems to be some truth to what you say about hyper-religiosity and hallucinations. There was a case of some members of the Krishna group who claimed that they saw Krishna on their altar or even walking in the park. I believe that these people were having hallucinations like you have mentioned in your posts.

The term "hyper-religiosity" certainly is an apt term to describe some of these people, and oddly enough as to your analogy of the person who can slam the phone down on the con man versus the person who gets sucked in, I have personally experienced that I am now able to do the former, whereas in the past I was more easily sucked in by such con men... thanks for this analogy!

Quote
brainstomer
I'm not looking to blame anyone. The alcoholic is not blamed
for growing up in a dysfunctional family. I'm only looking to empower
people. People are what they are for a reason. What makes one
person able to slam the phone down on a con man and another willing
to listen to what they say?

I'm not looking to play a game with one-upmanship with you on this.
I am a very compassionate person and I believe compassion has been
in my posts.

I am an alcoholic, but I grew up in a very non-dysfunction family of regular, non-hyper Christians. Alcoholism is genetic, like freckles and red hair. It cannot be prayed away. The abilty to stop drinking can be helped by prayer, but prayer, nor anything else will make an alcoholic into a normal drinker. You cannot change a pickle back into a cucumber. You can pray until your tongue is dragging on the ground, but you'll never change that.

[teenchallengeunmasked.blogspot.com]

I never heard the term "hyperreligiosity" before, but I do believe there is such a thing.

I saw a lot of it when I was on a guru path. People would tell stories about "magical" stuff the guru had said and done. And the guru himself would tell these crazy stories that everyone would just accept as gospel truth. One time he told a story about his meeting with another guru at a lecture the year before. He claimed that he had leapt onto the stage as if he were flying. Funny...I was there that day, and I remember no such thing.

Also, people would read books by Muktananda, or "Autobiography of a Yogi" and start claiming that they were having the same experiences during meditation that they had read about in the books. People always used to claim they "saw the blue pearl" when they were meditating. Yeah, right! If I stare at a light and then close my eyes, I'll see a blue spot too. It's an optical illusion!

Of course these people were praised and this type of hallucination was encouraged.

And I agree with Brainstormer that this trait can be present in mainstream religions too. I have a friend who was involved in a very strict fundamentalist Christian sect, and I met some of her fellow church members at a luncheon once. This one guy went on and on, name-dropping people from the Bible as if he knew them personally and had daily conversations with them. It was very creepy.